Rachel Ward reviews King of the Teds, a one-off drama starring Tom
Jones in the Playhouse Presents series on Sky Arts.

It’s not unusual to see Tom Jones on our TV screens at the moment. As one of the four coaches on the BBC’s popular talent show The Voice, he’s become a permanent weekend fixture, looking all dapper and having a ball on those spinning chairs. And now, like his friend Elvis Presley, he is trying his hand at acting, branching out at the ripe old age of 71.

In the short three-hander King of the Teds – part of Sky Arts’ Playhouse Presents series of home-grown dramas – Jones played out a very different role. He was Ron, an embittered ex-Teddy Boy recently made redundant from his northern bottle-factory job.

We got our first sight of Jones as he peered out from behind a copy of The Racing Post while sat at the kitchen table in his run-down terraced house. Dressed in a dowdy diamond-print cardigan and snapping at his long-standing and put-upon wife Tina (Alison Steadman), it was a tiny glimpse of how Sir Tom’s life might have panned out had he not gone on to superstardom (Jones used to work in a glass factory in his native Pontypridd and married his childhood sweetheart).

The story was well formed and neatly unfolded as the couple received a surprise visit from their best friend from the fifties who had got in touch via Facebook. Nina (played by Brenda Blethyn) and Tina used to wear "way out pink" lipstick, matching sticky-out dresses, and walked out on the arms of local hero Ron.

Steadman and Blethyn were wonderful – their energetic jive scene in the living room a particular highlight – and although Jones made a credible debut, he occasionally looked awkward, which showed all the more alongside such accomplished actors. How Steadman managed to keep a straight face as he took her in his arms and upstairs to lay her on the bed and serenade her with "Love Me Tender" is just another testament to her unshakable talent, and maybe a tip for Tom that the green, green, grass isn't always so lush on the other side.